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Shared Responsibilities During the Internship
The intern, collaborating teacher, field instructor and course instructors share some responsibilities during the year. The success of their collaborative work together rests largely on their explicit and regular discussion and negotiation of each responsibility.
Planning and communication
- Negotiate expectations, formats, and schedules for developing unit and daily lesson plans in a timely manner. Make sure that unit and lesson planning agreements for major subject matter areas (science, social studies, language arts, math) are consistent with course instructors' expectations for the intern's planning.
- Negotiate a procedure for the intern to follow in the event of absences (e.g., who should be contacted, how lesson plans will be shared).
- Negotiate plans for completing the TE 801-804 assignments that involve field work.
- Throughout the internship, the CT will remain the teacher of record for the pupils in the class. While the CT may delegate planning, teaching, assessing, grading and many other duties to the intern, the CT may not hand the intern the final responsibility for the class.
Professional activities
- Negotiate an appropriate sequence of activities and responsibilities that promote interns’ learning to teach (e.g., moving from observation to co-planing and co-teaching to increasing responsibility for lead teaching).
- Identify and arrange for outside-the-classroom opportunities that will benefit the intern and complement the coursework (e.g., observations of other teachers, participation in teacher meetings and inservices, parent conferences, curriculum committees, community-school committees, study groups, professional association).
Supporting and guiding interns’ learning
- Identify areas where the intern needs support and guidance in learning to teach, and develop strategies to promote the intern’s professional growth in these areas.
- Participate in joint conferences (intern, collaborating teacher, and field instructor) at least five times during the academic year:
- an initial conference during August or September, to confirm responsibilities, negotiate working relations, and plan the intern's learning;
- a mid-semester evaluation and planning conference in fall;
- an end-of-semester evaluation conference in December;
- a mid-semester evaluation and planning conference in spring, and
- a final evaluation conference in April .
Additional 3-way conferences may be necessary to support the intern’s professional growth.
Managing demands of the internship
- Review interns’ work arrangements to insure that interns understand the consequences of outside work during the intern year and that they can undertake an intensive year of professional study and guided practice while meeting their financial needs.
- Assist the intern in identifying strategies for coping--in ways that promote continued learning--with the various demands that they will face during the intern year.
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